"Lumley, Brian - Vampire World 2 - The Last Aerie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

Why did you wait?
Ahhh! Wran was taken by surprise, but recovered in a moment. What? A mentalist, too? But is it you, Nestor, or simply the effect of Vasagi's egg? If the latter, then obviously you got a good one ... considering its source, that is.' And again he laughed. As to why I waited: simple curiosity. Frankly, I didn't think you'd make it. Since you have, and since I'm responsible /or your -predicament? - it seems only right that I should escort you into Starside, introduce you and make explanation. For you're a cool one, Nestor, and in no way the fool I
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first considered you. The Suck was my enemy, but you'U make a useful ally. And what will you get out of it? Well believe me, you'll need all the friends you can get, in Wrathstack!
Wrathstack? It was news to Nestor. But the suffix 'stack' had brought a flash of memory. Synonymous with 'aerie', it had painted a picture in his mind of the last great redoubt of the Wamphyri, called ... Karen-stack? It had been, upon a time, of that he was sure. Also that he had been there before. But when, how?
His thoughts were so intense that Wran picked them from his mind without difficulty, and answered: Many a Lord or Lady has dwelled there from time to time, I should think, since the early days of Turgo Zolte. I can't say, for I don't know Starside's history. But now the aerie has new tenants, and on the whole we call it Wrathstack after the Lady Wratha, who brought us here from Turgosheim in the east. His thoughts had turned sour now.
She's your leader? Nestor was mainly innocent, careless in his choice of words.
She was, for a while, Wran growled in his head. And with a strong man to ride and guide her ... who can say? She could be again. Well, a partner in leadership, at least. But that's for the future ... Plainly, he'd grown tired of the conversation. Now let's make haste. For I've been too long away. Aye, and things are wont to change in a hurry, in Wrathstack ...
He drew ahead, put on a spurt and sent his flyer diving into the Great Pass, which split the barrier range in a dogleg north to south. Nestor followed (by his will, or purely of his beast's own inclination, he could not say) to hurtle above the bed of the pass at breakneck speed. The bend in the dogleg lay to the rear, a haze of yellow where the sun's lethal rays were trapped for
now. Any danger of burning was past, and the hackles on Nestor's neck lay flat. The earlier exhilaration of his ride returned; feeling more in control, he began to enjoy it.
He urged his flyer on. Faster, faster! Get in front. Show that sluggish creature how to fly! His beast responded, pulled ahead, left Wran in its wake.
Hah! Wran called after him. And so you see, he bred good creatures, old Vasagi. But on the other hand, why, there's not so much meat on you! And then, less grudgingly: Still, you do sit the beast well, so that what with your mentalism and all, I fancy you'll do all right.
Nestor looked back and laughed, and cried out loud: Til do better than all right!'
Oh, really? Wran pulled alongside again. Well, I hope you do, but the odds are all against it. What you have to remember is this: in Wrathstack we're all vampires born. And me? Why, I might well have been born in the saddle!
But this time his laughter was grating as iron in cold ashes as he swerved his flyer in towards Nestor's, caught it a glancing blow, and almost sent it crashing into the wall of the canyon! Turning side-on to fan the precipitous rock, the creature flattened like a leaf to scrape the weathered stone, and for a moment Nestor felt he'd be tilted into space. Then ... the danger was past and he could breathe again, and from up ahead:
So you'll do better than all right, will you? Maybe you will at that. But first you must live long enough, eh? It had been a lesson, and Nestor wouldn't forget it. Just one of several things which he wouldn't forget ... about Wran the Rage.
The end of the pass was now in sight, where the mountains sloped down to Starside's boulder plains. And on the left, just coming into view, the bulging,
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blinding dome of the half-buried sphere portal to the hell-lands. Nestor knew it without knowing how he knew; likewise the plume or finger of glowing, poisoned earth that pointed from the Gate out across the barren plains towards the Icelands. To him, these things were more than adequate confirmation that indeed he'd been here before. If only he could remember.
But he was given no time to ponder the enigma; for up ahead Wran swerved right, eastwards, away from the Gate and out towards Karenstack (no, Wrathstack, now), the last great aerie of the Wamphyri. Miles sped by beneath the manta flyers, where their moon- and star-cast shadows flowed like stains in the immemorial dust, or like clots of darkness over bald, domed boulders and riven earth alike. And looming in the north-east, vast monument to the evil of ages past, Wrathstack was a lone fang among the stumps of fallen stacks, where the shattered aeries of the olden Lords lay in tumbled disarray, littering the plain like corpses or rotted mushrooms petrified to stone.
And as if Wran read Nestor's mind again, though in fact he merely conversed, his question came ringing: 'Oh, and have you been here before, too, Lord Nestor?'
Aye, he had, the once at least. These jumbles of toppled stone, their configurations, seemed so familiar they were like memories in themselves; yet they failed to spark others in the aching void of Nestor's head. But he made no comment, neither speech nor thought, except to drive his beast that much faster and draw level again with his vampire companion.
Ahead loomed a stack (or the stump of one), three-quarters of a kilometre broad at its scree-littered base, rising to three hundred metres high by two hundred wide where its hollow neck was like the shattered bole of an ancient tree felled by lightning and turned to
stone. The rest of it, the aerie that had been, lay in blocks like the knuckles of a skeletal spine stretched out across the plain. But it was only the first of many.
Side by side, Wran and Nestor rose up and flew across the mighty stump from side to side, and looked down into its yawning, hollowed maw. There were rooms down there, vast pits, and stairwells of bone and stone, and polished vats like the molds for making monsters. 'Exactly so!' cried Wran, picking up Nestor's thoughts again. 'For this was an aerie, upon a time! Why, it must have rivalled Wrathstack itself! In Turgosheim in the east, men and warriors have clashed, and blood been spilled, over many a lesser manse than this!'
Nestor looked across at him. 'And yet now ... why do you live lumped together in Wrathstack?'
'Ah-hah!' Wran cried. 'It must be the recluse in you, as it was in Vasagi. He, too, would have stayed on his own, if he could. It was because the Suck felt crowded in Turgosheim, that he came here with the rest of us to olden Starside. Or perhaps it's simply your longing for an aerie and territories of your own, which is an urge common among the Wamphyri. But you know what, Nestor? Why, I find myself half-willing to believe that the spirit of some olden creature - some vampire out of time - has indeed returned to inhabit you! In other words, you're a natural, lad, a natural!'
They sped on, gaining height over a wilderness of twisted bone and fretted rock ruins, over tortured cartilage relics and fire-blackened mounds, where other grand aeries had exploded in their bases and slumped down into themselves, forming pyramids of scree and rubble. And Wrathstack drawing ever closer, rearing on high, its uppermost towers, battlements, launching-bays and windows most of a kilometre high and more than an acre in cross-section.
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II
The Last Aerie
And: 'Up now, up!' Wran shouted. 'Let the winds take you, where they spiral round this last great spire.'
Climb, Nestor commanded his flyer. Follow on behind. Gain height. Form scoops with your wings, trap the air, and rise on the rising thermals. It was all sound advice, but wasted; good practice but nothing more. His creature was experienced in all such matters.
And Wrathstack loomed closer still...
Less than a hundred metres from the wall of the colossal stack, both flyers discovered sighing currents of air and commenced a mighty rising spiral. And as they climbed, so Nestor benefited from Wran's knowledge of the place.
Down below, the Rage sent, in the nethermost levels, the very bowels of the place, that's Gorvi's domain. The dark and devious Gorvi the Guile. He keeps the wells, and has flightless warriors on the ground, to repel any would-be incursions. Hah! A pointless exercise! If ever we're attacked, it won't be from the ground. It's just a measure of the way he watches his back. We don't call him the Guile for nothing. Ah, see? Here he comes now, eager to know who won the duel and now returns victorious out of Sunside. But myself or Vasagi, what odds? It will make no difference to Gorvi. He'll be sour - he always is!
A flyer launched from a cavern mouth beneath an overhang of rock and came spiralling up behind. Fresh from resting, the creature fanned its manta wings and rapidly gained on Wran and Nestor's weary beasts. Nestor twisted in his saddle and looked back and down; his wide, curious eyes met Gorvi's only a wing-span to the left and a metre or two below, and he saw immediately how well the other's nickname suited him.
The Guile sat hunched, by no means cadaverous yet
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remarkably corpse-like, scowling in his saddle. The dome of his head was shaven save for a single central lock, with a knot hanging to the rear. Dressed in black, with his cloak belling out like tattered wings, the contrast of his sallow features turned him to a leprous vulture settling to its prey. With eyes so deeply sunken they were little more than a crimson glimmer, yet shifty for all that, and hands clutching the reins like skinny claws, this was Gorvi. He seemed a sinister creature: but of course, for he was Wamphyri! And he didn't like the way Nestor stared back at him.
'What's this?' Gorvi finally called out to Wran. 'Some captive you've brought back out of Sunside? A new lieutenant, perhaps? Was he your second in the duel, Wran? And if so, did Vasagi have one also? If not ... be sure there'll be some who say you cheated.'
Wran dropped back a little and settled lower, levelling with Gorvi. 'Do you think so?' he called across, scowling to match the other's scowl. They'll say I cheated, eh? Well as long as you're not one of them, you'll be safe. Or is it that you, too, would care to fly to Sunside with me, and try your luck in the gloomy forests?'
'I meant nothing by it.' Gorvi shrugged and reined back a little. 'I was making conversation, that's all. And so you've taken a prisoner. But a proud one, if I'm not mistaken.'
Again Nestor turned to look back at Gorvi, and this time his lip curled a little as he shouted, 'You want to know who I am, Gorvi the Guile? Then speak to me, not about me! My name's Nestor - Lord Nestor, of the Wamphyri - and the last thing I am is a captive!' 'Eh?' Gorvi was astonished, if not outraged. 'But -' '- No buts!' Wran cut him short. 'Learn all about it at my reception. But until then, keep your nose out! I'm